Psychological Operations

Check out this excellent recent documentary, which has just been posted on the Internet, about Nato’s secret armies that were set up across Western Europe after the Second World War. While these “stay-behind” armies were supposedly intended to help put together a resistance if the Soviet Union invaded their countries, they went on to commit terrorist attacks against their own populations, so as to influence domestic politics.

The documentary describes how, from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, Western intelligence agencies collaborated with right-wing extremist groups to commit false flag terrorist attacks, which would often be falsely blamed on left-wing groups. It features interviews with, among others, Daniele Ganser, author of NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Western Europe.

New York — Yesterday evening, the district court in Washington, D.C. ruled against two men who died in Guantánamo in June 2006 and their families in a case seeking to hold federal officials and the United States responsible for the men’s torture, arbitrary detention and ultimate deaths at Guantánamo.

Following a two-year investigation, the military concluded that the men had committed suicide. Recent first-hand accounts by four soldiers stationed at the base at the time of the deaths, however, raise serious questions about the cause and circumstances of the deaths, including the possibility that the men died as the result of torture.

In dismissing the case, the district court ruled that the deceased’s constitutional claims that it was a violation of due process and cruel treatment to detain them for four years without charge while subjecting them to inhumane and degrading conditions of confinement and violent acts of torture and abuse, could not be heard in federal court. The men were held on the basis of an “enemy combatant” finding by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal later found by the Supreme Court itself to be inadequate.

The district court held that the claims were barred by a jurisdiction-stripping provision of the 2006 Military Commissions Act that bars any challenge by a Guantánamo detainee to their treatment, conditions, or any other aspect of their detention, while failing to address the plaintiffs’ arguments about the unconstitutionality of the provision itself. The court also dismissed the deceased’s claims under the Alien Tort Claims Act, following a holding by the D.C.…

In a 2008 academic paper, President Barack Obama’s appointee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs advocated “cognitive infiltration” of groups that advocate “conspiracy theories” like the ones surrounding 9/11.

Cass Sunstein, a Harvard law professor, co-wrote an academic article entitled “Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures,” in which he argued that the government should stealthily infiltrate groups that pose alternative theories on historical events via “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine” those groups.

As head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Sunstein is in charge of “overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality, and statistical programs,” according to the White House Web site.

Sunstein’s article, published in the Journal of Political Philosphy in 2008 and recently uncovered by blogger Marc Estrin, states that “our primary claim is that conspiracy theories typically stem not from irrationality or mental illness of any kind but from a ‘crippled epistemology,’ in the form of a sharply limited number of (relevant) informational sources.”

By “crippled epistemology” Sunstein means that people who believe in conspiracy theories have a limited number of sources of information that they trust. Therefore, Sunstein argued in the article, it would not work to simply refute the conspiracy theories in public — the very sources that conspiracy theorists believe would have to be infiltrated.

Sunstein, whose article focuses largely on the 9/11 conspiracy theories, suggests that the government “enlist nongovernmental officials in the effort to rebut the… Continue reading →

The New York Times, on October 17, published a page-one story by Scott Shane about the CIA’s defiance of a court order to release documents pertaining to the John F. Kennedy assassination, in its so-called Joannides file. George Joannides was the CIA case officer for a Cuban exile group that made headlines in 1963 by its public engagements with Lee Harvey Oswald, just a few weeks before Oswald allegedly killed Kennedy. For over six years a former Washington Post reporter, Jefferson Morley, has been suing the CIA for the release of these documents.1

Sometimes the way that a news item is reported can be more newsworthy than the item itself. A notorious example was the 1971 publication of the Pentagon Papers (documents far too detailed for most people to read) on the front page of the New York Times.

The October 17 Times story was another such example. It revealed, perhaps for the first time in any major U.S. newspaper, that the CIA has been deceiving the public about its own relationship to the JFK assassination.

On the Kennedy assassination, the deceptions began in 1964 with the Warren Commission. The C.I.A. hid its schemes to kill Fidel Castro and its ties to the anti-Castro Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil, or Cuban Student Directorate, which received $50,000 a month in C.I.A. support during 1963.

In August 1963, Oswald visited a New Orleans shop owned by a directorate official, feigning sympathy with… Continue reading →

Built upon Thirteen Techniques for Truth Suppression by David Martin, the following may be useful to the initiate in the world of dealing with veiled and half-truth, lies, and suppression of truth when serious crimes are studied in public forums. This, sadly, includes every day news media, one of the worst offenders with respect to being a source of disinformation. Where the crime involves a conspiracy, or a conspiracy to cover up the crime, there will invariably be a disinformation campaign launched against those seeking to uncover and expose the truth and/or the conspiracy. There are specific tactics which disinfo artists tend to apply, as revealed here. Also included with this material are seven common traits of the disinfo artist which may also prove useful in identifying players and motives.

The more a particular party fits the traits and is guilty of following the rules, the more likely they are a professional disinfo artist with a vested motive. People can be bought, threatened, or blackmailed into providing disinformation, so even “good guys” can be suspect in many cases.

Editor’s Note:
This excellent article was posted at 911blogger this weekend at “Free’s” blog, and is followed by thoughtful, interesting comments and discussion.

UPDATE 7/21/09: A reader’s excellent suggestions have been added at the end of this article.

On the other hand, anyone who tries to label the maniacs who committed the murders as “right wingers” is painting with too wide a brush.

The murders – and the prevention of potential future attacks – are part of an important law enforcement issue. But just as it was insane to invade Iraq based upon a false linkage with 9/11, it would be insane to try to label millions of Americans as being dangerous just because they are republicans, or liberals or any other group.

Remember, many on the left say that the people and the treasury are being looted by the big corporations and fat cats . See this, this and this. So don’t fall for the old divide and conquer trick of trying to distr act from the populist anger which both the right and the left righteously feel at being ripped off.

And the fact that the guy who murdered the guard is anti-semitic does not mean that everyone who questions Israel’s oppressive policies is a bad guy. Remember, many Israeli citizens question… Continue reading →

This may be the shortest lived Diary on Kos history, begun only one week ago, mainly in response to the banishment of Tocque DeVille. I endeavor not to stray beyond the barricades of the Rules, but if I too face exile, all I ask of Kos and Meteor Blades before the guillotine is pulled is as much thoughtful consideration of these issues as I have given them…

In The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein relates how nations brutalized by the Chicago School’s savage capitalism and the Dirty War juntas enforcing it have recovered and developed a healthy immunity against more eviscerating shock therapy:

Any strategy based on exploiting the window of opportunity opened by a traumatic shock relies heavily on the element of surprise… in North America, the September 11 attacks were, at first pure event, raw reality, unprocessed by story, narrative or anything that could bridge the gap between reality and understanding. Without a story, we are, as many of us were after September 11, intensely vulnerable to those people who take advantage of chaos for their own ends. As soon as we have a new narrative that offers perspective on the shocking events, we become reoriented and the world begins to make sense again.

That psychology pertains on both the individual and societal levels: a trauma that is never dealt with openly, but suppressed in the subconscious, festers, reinforcing crippling habits and sabotaging recovery. Maybe it is our reigning paradigm of dogmatic… Continue reading →

By Thomas C. Fletcher
Review of new book by David Ray Griffin, Osama Bin Laden: Dead or Alive? Amazon.com

OSAMA BIN LADEN: DEAD OR ALIVE? by David Ray Griffin is a crucially important and timely examination of the whole range of evidence bearing on the question, is Osama bin Laden still alive? The importance of this question for the present comes from the fact that the United States under its new president is escalating its offensive in Afghanistan and expanding the war into Pakistan, and has claimed that the “hunt for bin Laden” is one of its principal motivations for doing so. Either explicitly or implicitly, the US government and major media outlets such as the New York Times and Washington Post continue to assert that bin Laden is alive, hiding in the tribal territories on the “AfPak” border, posing an undiminished threat to US security.

In his gripping new book, Griffin strikes at the root of this pretext for war by closely examining all the evidence that has come out since September 11, 2001, either indicating that bin Laden is still alive or that he is in fact dead. His conclusion is that bin Laden is certainly dead, and that in all likelihood he died in very late 2001. Griffin shows that many US experts in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency came to this very same conclusion long ago, but their views, which do not support the continuation of what President Obama, borrowing the term from Dick Cheney, calls “the long… Continue reading →

Stewart Bradley is an artist, documentary journalist, and political activist living in Lancaster Pennsylvania who runs an independent mulit-media studio. Stewart was already investigating covert government operations before 9/11 and since 9/11 has re-dedicated himself to exposing the public misconceptions behind the attack. In 2004 he wrote and produced a 9/11 docudrama titled “The Proof” and has been actively promoting 9/11 research through his website, blogs, videos, and internet debates. More at: http://bradleyinfotainment.com

How many times has this happened to you? You are explaining to someone some of the rational, logical reasons why the official story of 9/11 can’t be true, perhaps explaining how WTC 7 fell in the exact manner of a professionally planned controlled demolition — a job which would typically take weeks to prepare — when out comes a ‘thought stopper’ phrase like:

“That’s just another conspiracy theory !” or …

“Do you also believe in Big Foot and tin foil hats?”

Or perhaps the person gets angry and/or agitated. Facts no longer matter at that point, and you can tell the person does not want to hear any more. For example, the following response came from someone after they were given a 20-minute summary of 9/11 Truth information:

“I wouldn’t believe that, even if it were true!”

That reaction defies all logic and reason. But it clearly illustrates just how irrational some peoples’ defenses can be. Here are a few more honest responses/defenses:

“As long as my wife and kids are fine and we can live the life style we have, the truth is, I don’t really care what happened on 9/11.” “I would not want to live in a world where such a thing could be true.” “You can’t expect someone to listen to information that turns their world upside down.” “I’m not sure I want to know. If this is true, then up would be down and down would be up. My life would… Continue reading →

NEW YORK (CBS) — A furious President Barack Obama ordered an internal review
of Monday’s low-flying photo op over the Statue of Liberty.CBS 2 HD has discovered
the feds will have plenty to question.

Federal officials knew that sending two fighter jets and Air Force One to buzz
ground zero and Lady Liberty might set off nightmarish fears of a 9/11 replay,
but they still ordered the photo-op kept secret from the public.

In a memo obtained by CBS 2 HD [Ed: posted below] the Federal Aviation
Administration’s James Johnston said the agency was aware of "the
possibility of public concern regarding DOD (Department of Defense)
aircraft flying at low altitudes" in an around New York City. But
they demanded total secrecy from the NYPD, the Secret Service, the
FBI and even the mayor’s office and threatened federal sanctions if
the secret got out. (Emphasis added)

"To say that it should not be made public knowing that it might scare
people it’s just confounding," Sen. Charles Schumer said. "It’s what
gives Washington and government a bad name. It’s sheer stupidity."

The flyover — apparently ordered by the White House Office of Military Affairs
so it would have… Continue reading →

They say goldfish have no memory
I guess their lives are much like mine
and the little plastic castle
is a surprise every time
and it’s hard to say if they’re happy
but they don’t seem much to mind.

–Ani DiFranco, Little Plastic Castles

For the past eight years, American culture has seen an outburst of media-driven mythmaking. Corporate mainstream media organizations, the pundits they sponsor, and politicians from both major parties have formed a new contextual chorus singing the same refrain: “On September 11th, 2001, everything changed.” From cable TV to AM radio, from the blogosphere to the town-hall meeting, Americans repeatedly hear that “this is a post-9/11 world.”

Although there is some truth to this platitude of pivotal change, independently minded citizens may also wonder whether such mass media messages have become self-fulfilling prophecies. This provides an interesting point of debate about what has or has not changed in America since 9/11.

This chapter concerns itself with the ongoing phenomena of media mythmaking and how, like many Americans surmised just after 9/11, everything has not changed. 1 Corporate mainstream media have resurrected powerful myths from America’s past to shape public perception in the present. Through the prism of 9/11, one can see how the corporate mass media are in fact doing more mythmaking than news reporting. Here, the authors will examine central historic American myths the corporate media and even much of the alternative independent media have extended into the… Continue reading →

This video is dedicated to my neighbor, Greg, who woke me up to the Truth About 9/11 and to all of the givers around the world who wake up others.

You don’t have to be a William Rodriguez, Steven Jones or even a Richard Gage to be a Hero in the Truth Movement. All you have to do is be willing to wake up others, including perfect strangers. It only takes a little bit of Truth to get people to question the reality that they have been fed. Give a DVD, Flyer, Info Card or a Conversation about Building 7 to a stranger and watch them come out of the matrix.

Even if they don’t wake up right away, you are planting a seed for the next person.

“The Government has determined that continued prosecution of this case as to LINDAUER would not be in the interests of justice.” *

(Jan. 16, Wash. DC) The Department of Justice entered a motion to drop all charges against Susan Lindauer yesterday morning, Jan. 15, 2009. The filing (see below) at the federal district court in lower Manhattan ends the government’s attempt to prosecute her for allegedly acting as an “unregistered agent” for Iraq. Since her arrest in early 2004, she has repeatedly asked for a trial to present evidence that she had been a United States intelligence asset since the early 1990’s.

By filing this order, the government surrendered forever its ability to prosecute Lindauer as an “Iraqi foreign agent” and for lesser charges contained in the indictment, including a one week trip to Baghdad in March, 2002.

Lindauer made the following statement today, Jan 16, 2009: “I am disgusted by this case. They think that they have defeated me by denying my day in court. It could not be more wrong. If we can’t have a criminal trial, we’re going to have a civil trial for damages.”

Lindauer was arrested in March, 2004 shortly after offering to testify before a Bush appointed blue ribbon commission evaluating U.S. pre-war intelligence on Iraq. In late February, she informed the offices of two commission members, Sen. McCain (R-AZ) and Trent Lott (R-MS), that she could testify that U.S. pre-war intelligence was proactive and… Continue reading →

SAN FRANCISCO — Six veterans who claim they were exposed to dangerous chemicals, germs and mind-altering drugs during Cold War experiments sued the CIA, Department of Defense and other agencies today.

The vets volunteered for military experiments they say were part of a wide-ranging program started in the 1950s to test nerve agents, biological weapons and mind-control techniques.

They allege in their lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court that they were never properly informed of the nature of the experiments and are in poor health because of their exposure. They are demanding health care and a court ruling that the program was illegal because it failed to obtain their consent.

Marie Harf, a CIA spokeswoman, declined to comment on the lawsuit, which seeks class action status on behalf of all participants allegedly exposed to harmful experiments without their knowledge.

At least 7,800 U.S. military personnel served as volunteers to test experimental drugs such as LSD at the Edgewood Arsenal near Baltimore, Md., during a program that lasted into the 1970s, the lawsuit said. Many others volunteered for similar experiments at other locations, according to the lawsuit.

“In virtually all cases, troops served in the same capacity as laboratory rats or guinea pigs,” the lawsuit said.

One notorious CIA project from the 1950s and 1960s, code-named MK-ULTRA, involved brainwashing and administering experimental drugs like LSD to unsuspecting individuals. The project was the target of at least three Congressional inquiries in the 1970s,… Continue reading →